Ways and Songs and Flowers
by Distant Glory
Summary: It should be normal. It never is. That, it seemed, was the true power of the Heart of Chaos: the power to be broken over and over again. A collection of one-shots about Caius and Yeul.
1. Here Comes the Rain Again

Hello, my fellow fans! Welcome to **Ways and Songs and Flowers**, a collection of writings about the relationship between Caius and Yeul, a dynamic that so far seems to be sadly neglected within the fandom. (Two fics? Seriously?) I hope that eventually this collection will range all over the timeline, into all moods, and explore all the possible ways that these two could have related to one another over their long, long time together. Or a lot of them, anyway. I will probably favor a romantic bent (because I think they make an adorable couple), but there will be pieces where their relationship is familial, or friendly, or merely professional. Hundreds of lifetimes gives quite a lot of room for variation...

Many thanks, as always, to the marvelous** Poisonberries**, who ensures that I do not inflict writing of inferior quality on the Internet.

****_Disclaimer:_ They belong to Square-Enix. You can tell because of the tragedy.

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><p><strong>Here Comes the Rain Again<strong>

Twilight gathers outside Academia.

Ordinarily, Caius would sink into the state of awareness that he has developed over the centuries as the best way to keep Yeul safe - a detached trance that sees everything but does not anticipate action. But today, this state eludes him. He notices that the city lights up in defiance of the thickening darkness; he hears the rumble of thunder that precedes the coming storm. But most of his attention is focused not on his surroundings, as it should be, but on girl in front of him.

"It is nearly time," she says, and looks back over her shoulder at him. In preparation, she has removed the veil that ordinarily covers her face, and brushed her hair - the same color as the clouds above them - out from its heavy chignon.

The last time that her hair was loose, she was recovering from the vision that brings them here.

She reaches for his hand, and his fingers slip automatically into hers. He lets his hand linger, as though he can hold her here in defiance of the vision. But defying the vision would only bring the same consequences, in the end.

"Shall we?" he asks. His voice is as ragged at the edges of a wound. He does not let go of her hand.

She squeezes his fingers. Whether the gesture is a nervous one, or whether she is trying to bring him some measure of comfort, he could not say. "You promised, Caius," she says, her eyes fixed on his. "Once you have brought me to the right place, you must leave." She squeezes again, tighter.

He lowers his eyes. His emotions are a complicated swirl of hurt and acceptance. He wishes that she trusted him not to act on his thoughts of rebellion. "I will," he says. He squeezes back, and looks into her eyes. "As you said. I promised."

Her head bows. As she read his thoughts of defiance, she reads his hurt at her distrust. "I..."

"There is no need to apologize," he tells her. He is telling the truth. He is lying through his teeth.

She smiles at him - halting, regretful, apologetic.

The sky grumbles, and the first drops of rain fall spot the ground between them.

Caius looks out towards the city, where Yeul will die tonight, and opens a portal.

"Let us go," he says, and his vision blurs.

* * *

><p>Caius stands on Valhalla's shores, where history is visible to those who look, and watches. He sees what Yeul saw - the city awash with rain that does not cleanse, scattered with dying citizens and shambling crystal undead. He sees a reflection of himself manipulated like a puppet by an artificial fal'Cie, orchestrating the chaotic dance of death and damnation. And he sees the cause: a young man in black and blue and a young woman in pink and white, ignorant travelers of the timelines, authors of tragedies.<p>

The water laps at his ankles as he watches Serah and Noel pursue his simulacrum through the doomed city. Cloudy crystal pieces, hewn from their foes, crunch beneath their boots - tangible indications of the lives they have destroyed. Will destroy, in their blindness.

He watches each step bring Yeul closer to this death.

She waits on the other side of the city, a still and self-possessed point in a maelstrom. In the riot of artificial light, her eyes shine like another illuminated billboard. Her hair hangs in a heavy, shining curtain down her back, and her thin clothes - designed for the heat of Gran Pulse, not the chill of the vipers' nest - clings to her pale skin. She must be cold, but she does not shiver.

Caius folds his arms, and his fingernails scrape against the stiffened leather as he tightens his grip. He would not care about the hypocrisy of interfering with the timeline if it meant saving Yeul's life, but she ordered him away. His vows, given before he was trapped in this nightmare, bind him to her command. Academia is forbidden to him until she breathes her last.

As Serah and Noel finally reach their destination, the Cie'th begin to descend on her. Yeul steps forward, arms outstretched in welcome of her end. Caius grits his teeth, and his fingernails open crescent cracks in his black armor. Ten, and ten more, and yet another ten, within the space of a few seconds. Whether his vision is good or whether memory sharpens details that might otherwise go unseen, he notices a knot of hair beneath her left ear, its curves glistening in the rain.

_She was never able to untangle that,_ he thinks, inanely, as the cursed human wrecks hurtle towards her.

But she stumbles before them, and they pass overhead. Relief, sick and hot, coils in his stomach, though he sees her wince as one misshapen wing catches some of her hair and rips it from her head in its momentum.

Noel screams at the creatures. They swoop towards him and Serah, who stands resolutely if inexpertly by the boy's side. In all probability, they were the Cie'th's targets from the beginning.

Caius pays little attention to the battle that follows; Noel confirms within his first few sword swings that he has gained in skill, if not self-control. Instead, Caius watches the girl kneeling in the rain, face pressed close to her knees. Her hair hides her face, but Caius has no need to see her expression. He knows the pose from this Yeul's childhood: she is afraid. For all her self-control, she is afraid.

He seals eyes that burn, and curses the Heart beating within his chest. It was not enough for Etro to give him an impossible task; She also granted him the ability to be torn afresh by each failure. That, it seemed, was the true power of the Heart of Chaos: the power to be broken, again and again. To force its owner to endure pain that should long ago have faded into numbness.

It is only when the sounds of fighting fall away that he opens his eyes again. He knows that Yeul's escape was but a reprieve. He waits for the inevitable blow.

As Noel coaxes Yeul to her feet, Caius sees movement above them. Another Cie'th, hulking on the roof of a nearby building, with writhing, tentacle-like spines where it might once have had fingers.

Caius sees the creature and knows Yeul's killer.

Before Noel realizes the danger, the Cie'th has raised its arm, and the tentacles fly forward like arrows from a bow. They imbed themselves, to Noel and Serah's horror, and Caius's resigned distress, in Yeul's back. They whip backwards, and they carry her with them, until at last the spines work free of her flesh. She tumbles to the ground, rolls over and over. The scrapes she collects show red-raw on bare skin; as red as the blood on the back of her shirt.

This time, when Noel throws himself at the Cie'th, Caius does watch. He will encounter Noel again; he needs to know the limits of the boy's ability, his strengths and weaknesses. The same applies to Serah, who has been learning faster than he would have credited. As Noel's sword bites deep into one of the swollen, pulsating tentacles that have woven themselves into a barrier between the Cie'th and the attackers; and a fire spell cast by Serah leaves a radiating black scorch mark; Caius concedes that they are strong. They are skilled. They will be suitable to the task at hand, and this brings some small satisfaction.

Then the tentacle writhes, revealing Yeul's broken body on the wet pavement, and Caius looks away.

The footsteps behind him are the least welcome sound in the worlds. He knows to whom they belong, and he swallows hard.

"Warrior goddess."

The crunch of sand under metal boots pauses. Whether her surprise is genuine or she wants him to know that she notices his weakness, Caius does not care. After a moment, the footsteps resume, until his spine tingles with her nearness.

"Caius." Her voice is soft and level.

He inhales deeply, holds it until his lungs burn to match his eyes, his throat. He exhales slowly, forces his eyes to return to the battle. Noel and Serah have cut through the tentacle barrier, and are making their assault on the creatures itself. "Why are you here?" he asks.

"I have a stake in this, too," she replies.

They watch in silence as Zenobia reweaves its shield. Noel's strikes are a frenzy, but Serah retains her head; the tentacles turn green as she infects them with Poison. An increase in the damage that Noel is dealing suggests an adroit casting of Deprotect. A detached part of Caius approves; a good strategy will win a battle more often than brute strength.

"Your sister fights well," he says.

"She's always been a fast learner," Lightning replies.

Pieces of the Cie'th twitch on the pavement. Noel kicks one aside, viciously, and thick, inky blood stains his shoes. The shield has been reduced to ribbons, and the Cie'th draws what remains of its appendages away. An unwise move, but the mind of a Cie'th is only a vessel for anguish and hatred of the living. It does not strategize.

"Why aren't you there?" asks Lightning, quietly.

Caius watches as Noel underestimates the tenacity of his foe and runs for Yeul. "Are you trying to goad me, Lightning?"

"No."

He's not surprised by the answer, but repeats it anyway. "No?"

"Don't play dumb, Caius," she says, and there's something in her voice that hints at kindness. "We're both trying to save someone we care about."

Noel cradles Yeul in his arms, begs her for answers.

"You didn't answer my question."

Caius bows his head. "Listen."

"_I saw death. If I were to live, it would bring contradiction to - to the timeline._"

A bitter chuckle bubbles from Caius's throat and corrodes the silence that follows. "You are right. We are both trying to save someone that we care for." He looks at Serah, on her knees in the rain like a puppet with cut strings, clutching at her necklace as though it will hold together a world breaking apart. His gaze returns to Yeul, who uses the last of her strength to smile at Noel. "And both of our efforts are in vain."

A lonely wind moans down the shore. It stirs Caius's hair, exposing the back of his neck. How much Lightning has changed, he thinks, that he does not feel the bite of her blade for that comment.

A world away, in Noel's arms, Yeul convulses, face twisted in agony. In Valhalla, Caius struggles for breath.

Lightning's words swirl in the wind. "If you really believed that, we wouldn't be fighting." The sand crunches under her feet until he can see her pink-and-silver form out of the corner of his eye. "If you really believed that, you would have given up a long time ago."

Yeul's form goes limp, and Noel presses her head to his chest. Caius watches the rain wash away the blood still seeping from Yeul's wounds. He watches it until the rain runs clear, and Serah coaxes Noel to let the dead seeress go. They head towards the next gate, and they move like it hurts them. Serah's shoulders hunch until the straps of her dress strain across her shoulder blades. Noel looks back several times, his eyes full of the same anguish burning in Caius's chest.

He's so focused on the scene before him that when Lightning starts to walk away, the sound of metal against the sand shocks him into flinching. She doesn't seem to notice.

"Go on," says Lightning. Her voice seems to be a part of the wind, the waves. It could be the voice of Valhalla. The voice of Etro Herself. "Bring her home."


	2. Echoes of Alternate Presents

Hello again! Just before we begin, I'd like to thank everyone who reviewed, and/or put this story on their Favourites or Alerts list. It was wonderful to have such a positive response! I hope that you'll all enjoy this next piece as much as the first one. We side-step now, from AF 400 to 4XX, or thereabouts...

Much thanks, as usual, to **Poisonberries**, who makes it all better. Since many of you liked the appearance of Lightning in the last chapter, I think that Poison's fic _The Door of Souls_ may be relevant to your interests. Set in the aftermath of the events of Dissidia Duodecim, and between XIII and XIII-2, this piece is epic in every sense of the word. I heartily recommend it!

_Disclaimer:_ They're still not mine.

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><p><strong>Echoes of Alternate Presents<strong>

It begins when she is young.

She is given the task of watering the vegetable garden during a dry patch, because she insists on doing something to help. Even if it means hauling heavy buckets from the well in the high heat, the work is not without reward - the occasional slop of cold water over the rim feels good, though she will have to change clothes afterwards. The chore gives rhythm to her days, and she feels a sense of pride at making sure that although the plants may wilt a little in the heat, they will not turn yellow and brown and die.

The handle cuts a groove into her palm as she hefts the bucket up and begins to tip its contents, carefully, over the plants. The task requires concentration. It is bad for the plants to get too much water, just like it is bad for them to get too little, and Yeul goes about this duty as seriously as she does her other one. So when the sky grumbles unexpectedly, she squeaks a little in surprise and drops the bucket. The remaining water soaks her shoes and races down the furrow between the rows of plants as she looks up. Dark gray clouds had gathered overhead while she had been focused other matters.

They look heavy, and feel as though they are pressing down on her.

The first drops of rain spot her shoulders and bead, icy cold, on her sun-warm skin. Yeul shivers as the cold ripples outwards, goosebumps erupting up and down her arms. The rain feels wrong. Oily, somehow. It reminds her of the sticky mucous that the villagers collect from the flans, and she brushes at her arms to get the wetness off. But the rain is getting heavier, and all she is doing is spreading it.

Even though her hands are warm, the goosebumps remain in their wake. They sting. She rubs harder, faster, but all she seems to do is press the cold closer to her bones. Her hands stop feeling warm.

Yeul looks around for shelter, but everything is melting into grey streaks. She listens for the villagers, but she can't hear anything but the rain. Her hands tremble as they continue to rub up and down her arms - a convulsive movement that doesn't do anything to make her feel better. She feels like the only one left in the world.

_But that isn't right,_ she tries to tell herself. She gives up on trying to warm herself, and digs her nails into her upper arms. Even though she can feel them denting her flesh, there isn't any pain. Her skin feels numb and heavy. In her uneasiness, she licks her lips, but the rain collecting on her tongue and dripping past her lips tastes of rot. She spits with revulsion, until she is breathless, and hunts frantically for a dry patch on her clothes with which to wipe her tongue. She finds none; her clothes hang heavy on her, sodden with the rotten rain.

As she wraps her arms around herself, sick and shaking, something dark and man-shaped looms out of the gray.

"Yeul?" The voice is distorted by the storm, but it is still one that Yeul knows better than any other. She sprints over to Caius, tucking herself into his side and pulling one of his arms over her head. One of his broad hands makes a suitable umbrella, and she tries not to sob as she exhales with relief. His wet-leather smell is comforting.

He doesn't comment on her strange behavior. He only says, "Let's go inside."

Yeul nods. As they make their way back into the village, with Yeul trying to extend her stride and Caius trying to shorten his, she confesses, "The rain tastes bad."

"How so?" His voice is calm and even; Caius never disbelieves her. The cold, scared feeling inside Yeul eases a little. Even though the aftertaste makes her stomach roll, she focuses on it; tries to find the words to describe it.

"Rotten," she says eventually. "Like something dead."

* * *

><p>The next thing that becomes intolerable to her is crowds.<p>

The Farseers' have shed most of the traditions of Paddra, but they have not let go of celebrating her birthday. They string up their colored lights and gather together the best food for a night of feasting and dancing. Yeul is usually charmed by the lights - they make her think of colored stars. Every year she waits eagerly for dusk and darkness, when the sun no longer overshadows them.

But this time things are different. As the darkness gathers, Yeul begins to feel uneasy. She does not like to look at the lanterns out of the corner of her eyes, and she definitely does not like the way that they seem to flash when her vision is blocked by someone taller passing.

She notices that Caius remains studiously behind her, and is grateful for that.

As the crowds gather, she feels the irrational fear gathering in her again. She drops back until she is beside Caius, rather than in front of him. Even though she knows that the village is relatively small - some of the further-ranging hunters speak of cities many, many times larger than this - the people seem to multiply until they fill the whole world. From the corners of her eyes, the lanterns seem to flash as they are hidden, revealed, hidden again by the people passing by.

The taste of rot gathers in her mouth again, and she seems to feel rain on her skin even though the sky is clear and the stars are shining. She swallows.

Caius, who is standing at an angle where the movement will not be observed, touches her hand gently. His fingertips - calloused by century upon century of fighting - are warm and dry against cold and clammy skin.

"I will not allow you to come to harm," he says.

Somehow, the words are not as comforting as they should be.

* * *

><p>Perhaps it is her discomfort with crowds that leads her to her interest in mechanics. The village does not have much use for machines, except for the one that allows them to make changes in the weather (and even the seeress is not permitted to tinker with this - something that Yeul is disappointed by but accepts), and so this means that she must look elsewhere to satisfy her craving.<p>

Caius accompanies her without a word as she begins to make treks out into the Steppe, looking for automata that have finally succumbed to wear and tear and time. If he wonders what she intends to do with them, he does not ask.

She tells him anyway, because she thinks he wants to know.

"I want to understand," she says as she picks through the inner workings of a rusted Scutari. Everything below her elbows is stained with grease, and she keeps her arms carefully away from her clothing. She is almost certain that the marks will not wash out. "And..." A nail catches and breaks on a jagged ridge somewhere inside the machinery, and she withdraws her hand carefully to check that she hasn't drawn blood. She hasn't. She does not immediately plunge her hand back into the wreck, but wriggles her fingers as though checking their mobility. The movement is a nervous one, an outlet for sudden energy that makes her want to get up and pace as much as it asks her to hold her tongue.

She has never admitted to this, and even though she trusts Caius implicitly, it is hard for her to say what she does.

"I want to have some kind of skill," she says. The grass around them rustles as the wind begins to pick up. "I want to have something that has nothing to do with being the seeress."

She feels Caius's eyes flick down to her. She can feel his gaze on the back of her head. She shifts on her knees.

The pause goes on for a long time, long enough that Yeul imagines that he is trying to form an answer.

But whatever her Guardian might have said is lost as a sudden, shrieking cry echoes across the plains. Yeul starts violently, gasping as though she has been hit, and sharp edges tear furrows on the back of the hand still encased in machinery. Biting her lip, she maneuvers the limb out of the automaton as Caius yanks his sword from his back. She knows without looking that his lips are pulling with indignation and frustration. It's clear what he is thinking - _how_ did a Cie'th manage to get this close without him noticing?

Yeul knows. She can feel the broken edges of history in the air like she could feel the broken parts in the Scutari. The abominations staggering through the grass towards them are not of this time, this place. There are always Cie'th on the Steppe, but not of this type.

As she gazes on the clumsy, skeletal forms that Caius is blasting apart with considered casts of Fire, Yeul tastes oil and rot again. She presses herself down in the grass, goosebumps rippling over her skin and pretends that she cannot hear distant screaming.

One of the creatures shrieks, and it feels to Yeul like a knife sliding along her nerves. Something hard impacts her knee, and she scrambles back with a cry.

But the danger is gone. Caius has taken care of it. What she thought was a threat was only a piece of the crystalline corpse, snapped from the spindly body as it collapsed.

The Cie'th's detached head does not glare, because it has no eyes. For the first time, Yeul notices that there are growths covering them, shaped like hands. As though whatever soul remained in the cursed body had not wanted to see itself, anymore.

She doesn't feel threatened. But she does feel nauseated.

"Yeul?"

She looks up at her Guardian. "They were human, once," she says, and her voice cracks as she says it. Anyone who inhabits Gran Pulse lives with the reality of Cie'th. Yeul does not know why the tragedy of their situation has suddenly struck her so hard.

But Caius does not appear to be impatient with her. "Yes," he says. "But no longer." He holds out a hand, and helps her up. For a moment, the world swirls around her. Instead of leather, Yeul thinks that she feels flesh; Caius's violet eyes become blue. She sways as impossible information imprints itself on her senses; cold, not heat; stone, not grass; rain, not dry...

Then Caius's hand comes down on her shoulder, steadying her, and everything snaps back into focus. He holds the contact as she shifts her footing, trying to reorient herself to the world around her. Yeul swallows, trying to stop her gut from twisting itself in a hard, tight knot. She does not understand what just happened. It was not a vision. But if not a vision, how does she explain what she saw and felt?

"I want to go home," she says, voice small.

Caius only nods, and they return to the village.

* * *

><p><em>Rain. Crowds. Cie'th<em>. What holds these things together? Yeul considers this question, staring up at the sky. It is late at night - or very early in the morning, perhaps - and her dreams are haunted by flashes of sinister color and the sound of screaming. She does not want to sleep. The creeping fear still shadows her.

Is Etro trying to tell her something? These feelings, these reactions, they are not a manifestation of Etro's gift as Yeul knows it. Is this something that can only be expressed in an indirect way? Are the puzzle pieces that she has been handed the key to something that she must warn for?

_Rain. Crowds. Cie'th. Screams._

Yeul draws her knees up to her chest and wraps her arms around them. She does not know what she is supposed to do, and this frightens her almost as much as the reactions themselves. Even though she is no longer a ruler, has not been a ruler for centuries, she still feels the weight of responsibility. If what she is feeling is a warning of danger...

She feels movement behind her: Caius. He seems to have a sixth sense that allows him to feel her turmoil. She supposes that this is a useful skill in a Guardian, if only because it will allow him to prevent his charge from doing anything stupid...even if it is disconcerting.

_Rain. Crowds. Cie'th. Screams._

"The fal'Cie have been mostly dormant for centuries," she says aloud.

She feels Caius tense. It is a very small movement, but Yeul reads it. He is more transparent than he knows. At least, to her. "Caius?"

There is a patch of greater silence in the night. Then it breaks with something that, if more pronounced, might have been a sigh.

"I will give you your answers," he tells her.

* * *

><p>Yeul has heard of Academia. It is now the largest city on Cocoon; the center of government for most of the human race. But stories ill-prepare her for its sheer size, or the way that outshines the stars in the sky.<p>

It is completely unknown - and yet, this view is familiar.

"I don't understand," she says, looking up at Caius. She can make out the contours of his face in the dim light. He looks out at the city, and his face is grim. But there is something about his eyes that stops him from looking angry. There is something about him that looks...sad. Pained.

His voice is quiet and level as he tells her about an alternate timeline - one that diverged three hundred and eighty seven years ago. He tells her about a vanity of Cocoon's fallen - an artificial fal'Cie, subject to the whims of humanity, and the way that it turned on its masters. He speaks of time travelers - ones that Yeul has seen, occasionally, in other visions. He speaks of a city damned, its citizens converted en masse to Cie'th in an effort to erase a perceived paradox. And then he falters.

She waits a few seconds, but he does not resume.

"Should I look?" she asks. "If you do not want to say -"

"No," Caius cuts her off. He takes a deep breath, but he no longer needs to continue. The pieces have fallen into place. Now Yeul knows what she has been feeling - the experiences of her counterpart in the other timeline, bleeding across history's fault-lines. The rain that fell that awful night; the smell of Cie'th and pollution and destruction. The screaming chorus of the damned. The panicked press of the citizenry, already dead on its feet.

"I died," she says.

"Yes," says Caius. His voice has a husky, barely-there edge of pain.

As Yeul stares out at the city, she feels cold anger begin to rise. She clenches her fists.

"Why?" she asks aloud. "Why must we suffer because of something that will not happen?"

Yeul is prepared for her life to be sacrificed in order to guide people on the correct path. Even if the prospect of her own death is frightening, it does not to her seem to be an unfair trade, one life for many. But this series of events is one that can no longer occur. History has been altered. There is no fal'Cie to curse Academia's inhabitants; she will not die at Zenobia's malformed hand.

Since her early childhood she has been living in fear - needlessly. Caius remembers a timeline that never was, and suffers for it - needlessly.

Pain with no purpose. Etro is cruel.

The conclusion is a new one, and for a moment it roots Yeul in place. But even though the thought is unfamiliar and dangerously blasphemous, Yeul finds that it fits. _Yes, cruel,_ she thinks, turning it over in her mind. And suddenly, she wonders - is this what Caius thinks? When he sees the timeline branch arbitrarily, when he sees one life exchanged for another with no equality in the trade, does he, too, conclude that the goddess that they serve is callous, uncaring, unfeeling?

The thought recedes as quickly as it came. It _is _blasphemy, and useless besides. What can they do? There is nothing to be gained from railing at Etro. They can only control themselves.

Although perhaps at this time, that is enough.

She lifts her head and inhales deeply. "I will no longer be afraid," she says. Reaching out, she fits her fingers between Caius'. He squeezes her hand in answer, and Yeul leans her head on his arm. It is small comfort to him, she knows, but she offers it because it is all she can give.

Together, they watch the lights flicker, and try to let go of what never happened.

* * *

><p><strong><em>End note:<em>** This won't be the last time that we encounter the Yeul of 4XX AF. However, just to switch things up a little, the next installment will be taking us back to the days of Paddra...


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